i have seen a few kits over the years with the standard breather holes enlarged , badges removed - thinking of the shell holes here not the bass drum skin but i guess its part of the topic as well i have had people tell me to point a mike at the hole in the shell for better tom sounds

comments ..?

Rick O'NeilI think we went to different schools togetherturtlerockmastering.comwe listen

Did a few sessions with Warne Livesey (he of Midnight Oil fame) and he swore by micing the vent on the snare.He got a great snare sound too.I haven't seen any kits with enlarged vents myself, except my Oaklawn Camco. It has a large hole in each tom shell.It's not good for the acoustic drum sound IMO.

"The vented snare came about in the 1970's when Ludwig was trying to figure out a way to make a louder marching snare drum. Through experiments they found that creating a way to let the air out of the shell faster will result in the bottom head being louder (which of course is where the snares are located)."

I haven't tried one myself - already got about 15 different snares to choose from. Although the best sounding snare I have has a 40 strand snare wire on it which just sounds magic and gives you much more of a "snare" sound from it which I presume is what the vents are attempting to do also. It would be interesting to stick a mic in front of one of the larger vents like in some of those photos though! I haven't seen any toms with enlarged holes/vents though.

I discovered the "snare vent" mic setup completely by accident; my own wayward drumming knocked the 57, mounted on a crappy old stand, and pointed it directly at the vent. i don't think i've moved it since, it sounded that good!

It just seems to sound exactly how the snare sounds - kind of gives a "whole picture" of the snare. However hat bleed can get worse in this position

I take the 57 off the mic clip and hold it in my left hand, and rotate it through an arc, to fine the best rejection point for the hi hat, and then start moving the mic around the drum, to find the sound all the time tapping on the hi hat with a drum stick with my right hand.

I wasnt watching what I was doing, and all of a sudden had a great snare sound....looked down and the 57 was to the left side of the snare, vertically, at the same height as the actual centre of the snare. I was stunned. Whoda thunkit 8).

Given the right drummer that snare can sound like a jet of steam coming out of the vent. I occasionally mic it, and when I do I use an Octava MC012. I can see (or hear) how a 57 would be good for that too. I combine it with the top snare mic, never tried it on it's own.

Was micing up my brass snare and looking for "that sound" yesterday - trying a D11 and ended up with it just outside and 1" above the rim and pointed down at the vent at about 15 degrees off vertical - the rim click sound was the one

30 years ago I screwed a car tyre valve into a snare vent hole and pumped up the snare to make the skins slightly convex. This made the snare wires wrap smoothly across the whole skin surface, no more rattles and very snappy.No good for micing up in this situation!